Agree on the absorbing info bit. I got MSFS when in between things during COVID and have flown exclusively in VR. It let me escape and go anywhere when I couldn

Agree on the absorbing info bit. I got MSFS when in between things during COVID and have flown exclusively in VR. It let me escape and go anywhere when I couldn't in real life. Then I found myself watching hours and hours of videos on IRL procedures, how to use avionics, etc. I picked up stick and rudder and can only describe it as a book that seduced me into wanting to fly IRL with how it broke down what was actually happening. Did my first discovery flight on New Year's Eve a couple years ago out of KPAO in a beautiful little DA40 almost like the one in the sim (though it didn't have fadec). Experiencing landing at KHAF during a beautiful sunset was subliminal. And so. Eerily. Familiar. I also was able to easily locate my house and do a steep turn circling over my home so my family could spot me. Landmarks from the air were familiar already. However I definitely succumbed to staring at my instruments despite knowing that would likely happen. I also wasn't prepared for the sheer amount of sensory overload from the physical sensations and what I'll call "better graphics" of real life (better fov, frame rate, resolution, color range, model quality). It literally almost had me dazed driving home afterwards. Since then I've gone on a few more flights and have over 200h in the sim. It has helped me get comfortable-ish with comms through vatsim, and I nailed my first day of landings by the numbers according to Cloudahoy data and my CFI. I fully attribute that to the sim as I already had somewhere internalized pitching for speed, power for altitude, and had some semblance of a sight picture and knowledge of how to fly a pattern. Though I wasn't prepared for the stick force needed to push the plane down on downwind after the first notch of flaps. It helped me prep for an amazing flight tour in Kauai as well where I grabbed the flight plan of the tour plane and realized I needed to sit right seat if I wanted any good photos. Got to cloud surf for the first time then and the sim has nothing on IRL clouds. Or rainbows for that matter. All in all, I attribute my desire to learn about flying to the sim. It is accessible and more affordable than flying, despite my Virpil hardware. I don't know if I'll go for my PPL with a growing family. Maybe if MOSAIC gets finalized and I can get my SPL in a safer than LSA trainer like a DA40 I'll do that.